m15x, blue squares everywhere!

I've had countless problems with the laptop but most have been fixed ( under warranty ) however the warranty soon ran out and we couldn't renew it at the time due to the price being just plain silly, but Alienware know the build quality on these things are poor, hence the price.

Around two weeks ago my mum brought the laptop in and told me it wouldn't start, it would crash on the windows 7 animated start up logo thingy-ma-jig. Although I was more worried about the fact that there are blue squares everywhere!




The laptop starts up fine and I'm greeted with the "The computer was not shut down correctly" If I proceed it completely locks up at the animated logo windows 7 loading screen thing. If I hit the repair option, it tries to repair it for 30 minutes then gives me a "Cannot automatically repair" and I can send the data to microsoft.

Now, this is where things get confusing, I took it to PCworld ( Not the best place but, I couldn't think of anywhere else ) and they confirmed it was a graphics card problem, so I rang alienware and again, graphics card problem. Not only did they say it was a graphics card problem but had the nerve to offer us a new one for £500, that's right, a 8800M GTX for £500, I know laptop components are usually more expensive but.. £500? you Alienware, you twats. I consider myself quite computer knowledgeable but laptops just phase me, however I knew for certain this laptop came with TWO graphics cards. The 8800M GTX and an Intel integrated X1900 or something, there is an option to swap between the two at any point by holding "FN" and clicking "F7" however when doing so, nothing changes.

Maybe you can't actually change the graphics card until successfully booted into the OS and loaded all the drivers and whatnot, but something doesn't seem right.
There must be a way to switch to the integrated graphics card via some super secret BIOS or something, surely.

If anyone can give me any help I'll very much appreciate it.

 

Update:

I tried putting in the system recovery disk and boot from the drive, when I was asked if I wanted to boot from drive I had loads of C's with dangly bits everywhere. Just scattered all over my screen in random places like a mine field.

Not only that but when I restarted earlier I took a picture of what it said:

 

How long have you had laptop for and when did the warranty expire?

 

Yup, your gpu dead already, same thing happened to my desktop..

 

PXE-E61 means there is no bootable partition available to the BIOS - if you have already tried to boot from a CD or a USB, (by changing the boot order in the BIOS), then you may have a corrupt BIOS

 

I reinstalled the operating system using the Alienware recovery disk and harrah, I actually got to the desktop! ( Albeit with all the crazy blue lines/squares ) so I decided to quickly take the opportunity to change to the Intel graphics card.
I held FN and clicked F7 to change to the other graphics card.. nothing happened so I restarted thinking It'd need it and now all I get is a Grey/black screen.
The weird thing about the screen is that I can hear the laptop loading the operating system ( Windows sound when loading & then logging in to an account ) but all I could see was black nothingness.

So now I keep restarting it to try and get back to my desktop, it's a weird problem.

 

Now it's getting strange, it seems that whenever I use the Intel graphics card, I get the black screen of nothing, if I use the 8800m gtx I get the crazy lines/squares.

I'm also getting a message when booting up:
( Your computer can't come out of hibernation. )



This is what the desktop looks like:



And this is the black screen, even though I hear the logging into windows sound:



I honestly can't make anything of this, are both cards broken? Or is this actually a screen issue? They both can't be broken, surely?

 

do you have a backup of your bios, try flashing it again. it hard to believe both cards would go bad at the same time, but i guess that not impossible.

 

What's common between the Integrated Graphics and the GPU card? Probably just the data highway, (PCIe), the MOBO chipset or the BIOS - must be worth a try to flash the BIOS.

 

No idea how to flash a Bios, never done it before. Although I'll look at some guides and have a try.

 

Sorry I forgot to answer, I've had it about two-three years, it's been expired for around a year.

 

I tried restarting it and changing the graphic cards a couple of times and.. well not I'm not so sure. With the screen working ( squiggly lines ) I changed the card, restarted and got the black screen, then I waited until I heard the logging in sound, changed it back and restarted.. still black screen, then repeated changing it again and three times later I STILL have the black screen, so maybe it's not actually changing graphic cards...

Ahh, this is getting really frustrating.

 

do you have an external monitor to see if it will output correctly to it.

 

I'll give it a try tomorrow and post back, it's getting late.
Thanks for everyones help though!

 

I have a similar problem with my 8800 Ultra years ago, and it turns out the the card is bad due to heat issue.

 

try baking it. i just did a 8800gtx that wasnt even showing a screen and it worked

 

Sorry for the late bump, been a hectic week or so.
I opened her up and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary, I might have to try this "baking" in a couple of hours, although my folks think I'm a sandwich short of a picnic for wanting to stick my graphics card in there.

The weird thing which I've mentioned before is, if the 8800M GTX is broken, why when I switch to the integrated card do I get a solid black screen? Unless it's a total and utter coincidence that they've both broken at the same time.

I tried plugging my television into the laptop, when I plug it in using the 8800 I get no option to change to the television, it just doesn't register as it being plugged in. When I plug it in using the integrated card, I get nothing, just a black screen on both the laptop monitor and television.

 

I decided to bake it.. IT WORKED!!!

The computer now works! Although my wi-fi is not currently working but I'm guessing it's drivers but again, hurray!

Thankyou for suggesting baking it guys.

 

Remember, it's only a temporary fix. You'll likely want to get a new GPU regardless.

Phone Alienware again, and ask them if you can buy an ATi Mobility Radeon 3870 instead. It's completely compatible with the laptop, it's a lot cheaper than an 8800GTX, it'll only be slightly slower, and it'll last a lot longer.

At the same time, if it's working, try it on the Intel GPU again. If it's not working on the Intel GPU then something else is wrong. You probably don't want to buy a 3870 just to find that there's an issue with another part as well.